


observations on atlas's shoulders

by goodmorningbeloved



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gap Filler, Light Angst, M/M, POV Outsider, heavy references to canon but not entirely compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 20:30:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9459314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorningbeloved/pseuds/goodmorningbeloved
Summary: But he’s an artist, isn’t he? He’s never not observing and analyzing, taking stock of postures and profiles and filing them away for reference. Human figures find their way into the margins of his sketchbooks over the next few months, until eventually they take up their own pages—a combination of whisper-soft strokes and dark, hard lines that convey weight and movement. It helps that inspiration is easy to find in their new partner.--Or: Five times Nate observes Rafe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> 1) this started out with the intention of being lightfic, but as i got nearer to the end, it became not fluffy as i intended, so uh..  
> i'd apologize, but i'm actually sort of proud of this one oops  
> 2) all characterizations and interpretations within are only mine and i don't claim to have full authority on them; if anything feels OOC, it's all on me ahah. i personally feel like anything nate/rafe will always feel a little OOC (even though i, along with practically every other ship, have developed a weird fondness for it), and this ended up being more of a take on _their_ possible relationship  
>  3) the official pairing here is sam/rafe, but after rereading this, the nate/rafe can be read as platonic or romantic  
> 4) it's 3:30 am as i post this, and i'll probably reread with a clearer eye in the morning, but until then, as usual, let me know if there are any glaring typos :~)

i.

Nate notices it right when Sam points out their potential new partner—the set plane of the Adler heir’s shoulders, the way the young man holds himself as he entertains his guests, a hand holding a wine glass and the other making gestures that must have something to do with the story he’s telling. “See him?” Sam murmurs, and despite that he’s been complaining about being uncomfortable the whole evening, Nate sees a glint of something— _something_ in his brother’s eye that suggests there is more to it.

“Yeah, very clearly,” he says, trying to latch onto that _something_. It seems like trust, and if his brother trusts this man, then he’ll trust his judgment because Sam’s never _not_ looking out for them. 

It doesn’t mean he can’t be a little annoyed by the air of arrogance that their prospective partner exudes in _waves,_ though. “I know, I know,” Sam grumbles, like he knows what he’s thinking, “he looks like an asshole — which, he _is,_ a _little_ bit, okay — but he’s got the money and the contacts we need.”

Rafe Adler—the heir to the Adler business and fortune, still rather green but old enough to have shed his naïveté, and Nate and Sam’s formal invitation to this party. _This is the earliest time I will be available to talk_ , Rafe had noted in their correspondences, which felt more like an ultimatum and thus led to a last-minute scramble to find cheap tuxedo rentals, cologne, and hair gel. Nate is actually rather proud of how well he’s cleaned up, and his earlier glimpse of the mirror had him thinking, _Hey, I do sort of blend in_ , but seeing the younger man now makes him feel inadequate in his clothes.

Adler cuts a clean figure in garnet red against a sea of indistinguishable partygoers. The small crowd he’s gathered is obviously enraptured with him, and he smiles at all of them with equal attention—though his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes and reminds Nate of the smiles plastered on the kids he used to live with at the orphanage. It’s his shoulders that pique Nate’s interest the most, though: The way Rafe sets them back in a posture that conveys both ease _and_ assertion.

Nate mirrors him without really thinking about it, setting his own shoulders back and lifting his chin deliberately. 

He holds. 

He relaxes. 

He thinks, _Doesn’t he get tired of doing that all the time?_

“Let’s go introduce ourselves,” Sam says, adjusting the lapels of his tux for what must be the hundredth time that night. Nate has chalked up all the previous times to genuine discomfort, but Sam’s eyes are lingering on Adler now and he’s also pushing a hand through his hair, combing it back. _Preening._

Nate’s not _completely_ oblivious, and he can put together this stare with the familiar and faintly mischievous exclamation of, “Ah, Samuel!” that Rafe Adler greets them with. 

_So he meant introduce_ me _,_ Nate thinks, not bitterly. He’s more interested in this new development— This is the first time _he_ has met Rafe Adler, but clearly his brother has met him already.

_Okay, let’s not think about the implications of that._

He waits as Rafe excuses himself from the crowd, and in his peripheral vision, he can see Sam smiling openly next to him.

“If you were busy, we could’a come back later,” his brother says, accent slipping out around the sentence more thickly than usual.

“Oh, they’ll get over it.” Rafe smiles at them— No, smiles at _Sam_ , really, and that one’s genuine, reaches his eyes and crinkles them a bit around the corners. It’s confusing, because the rest of him is still tight-edged, coiled, guarded.

Adler is an interesting, if not confusing person, that much Nate can conclude. He isn’t sure whether he’s a threat yet, but someone with that much money—it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious. 

“This is my brother, Nate,” Sam says, tipping a head towards him finally. “Nate, Rafe. We’re, uh, we’re lookin’ forward to working with you.”

“As am I. Good to meet you, Nate,” Rafe says, and then Nate finds himself at the receiving end of a smile too. It feels genuine enough — maybe out of obligation? He’s still unclear on Rafe’s personal motives behind Avery, but whatever it is, Rafe seems to need them as much as they need him. It makes sense that he would try to be civil.

He’s jarred from his thoughts when Rafe takes a sip of his glass, lowers it, and says casually, “I’ve arranged hotel rooms for us to stay in, beginning tomorrow.”

It’s hard to conceal his surprise; he turns to Sam, but his brother is merely nodding, like he knew this was coming, and Nate feels like he’s missing some extra conversation that occurred sometime before. ( _Multiple extra conversations, probably._ Christ _, Sam._ )

“You know how to cut to the chase.” Sam’s tone is appreciative, and Nate doesn’t want to _think_ about what else his brother could mean other than that Rafe Adler is effective and to-the-point.  
“When it matters,” Rafe says, eyes mirthful.

Nate figures it would be rude to just plug his ears, so he makes a half-hearted excuse about finding some more wine before ambling off. In reality, he pushes through the crowd until he’s on the side of the room farthest from his brother and their newest… _partner_ , he supposes, but not far enough that he can’t see that they’ve moved closer together, their backs angled towards him. Adler’s hand is moving again, and Sam’s gaze is fixed on him; neither make any effort to look for where he had gone.

“Huh,” Nate says, leaning against the wall and observing. Rafe Adler’s shoulders still cut a sharp line, but the rest of him looks—at ease, comfortable.

_I’ve gotta be overanalyzing_ , Nate tells himself, shaking his head and resolving to find something else to do until the night is over. He casts his brother and Rafe one last glance, as if expecting the scene to change absurdly and for an illusion to break, but the two carry on, chattering and laughing like old friends.  _Yeah. Definitely overanalyzing._

 

ii.

But he’s an artist, isn’t he? He’s never _not_ observing and analyzing, taking stock of postures and profiles and filing them away for reference. Human figures find their way into the margins of his sketchbooks over the next few months, until eventually they take up their own pages—a combination of whisper-soft strokes and dark, hard lines that convey weight and movement. It helps that inspiration is easy to find in their new partner.

They’re in a hotel in Miami, Sam and Rafe watching a soap opera on television, the backs of their heads, necks, and shoulders just visible over the back of the sofa. Nate observes from his seat at the counter a little ways back, one hand propping his chin up and the other resting idly atop a half-finished sketch. He would be sure that the other two are asleep if not for the occasional derisive scoff from Rafe at a particularly exaggerated scene or Sam adjusting the arm he’s got thrown over the back of the sofa.

(He had made a joke earlier about it being a _loveseat._ Sam pretended to be affronted while Rafe rolled his eyes and sighed loudly on purpose, and then they proceeded to sit down together anyway.)

Nate’s restless, mulling over the next step of their plan — intentionally throw themselves into prison — and usually drawing burns some of that energy off, but the rough, blunt lines of his pencil don’t feel _enough_ tonight. _Or you could get some sleep_ , his common sense tells him, but he and sense don’t always see eye-to-eye, so instead he hops off the stool and goes off in search of his duffel bag.

He finds the thin cardboard container he’s looking for, filled with forty different colors of oil pastels. The brand is _Holbein_ , and one day Sam thrust it into his hands and told him _happy birthday_. Sam wouldn’t tell him how he afforded it, but a week later, Rafe let him borrow his laptop for research, and when Nate began to type out “ _how to remove wine stains from shirt_ ,” “ _high quality art supplies”_ came up in neat purple letters instead. So there’s that.

He eyes the two on the couch warily, expecting them to turn around and question him, but they remain engrossed in that ridiculous drama. He returns to his spot at the counter, where he doesn’t mind being alone because one, he’ll be going to sleep soon anyway, and two, he’d rather not squeeze between his brother and his brother’s… _whatever_ Rafe is to his brother, thank you.

The pastels, he soon finds, glide _beautifully_ even across his cheap sketchbook pages, and he’s grudgingly thankful that Rafe actually bothered to find something for him, even if Rafe will never admit to it. (Nate knows it was him, because if the search history wasn’t enough, on that same night he received the pastels, Sam took him out to a bar, got both of them hammered, then slurred, _Isn’t this the best birthday present I’ve ever gotten you._ ) 

He warms up with light blues and greens, mindless scribbles that, in his eye, eventually coalesce into two lone figures standing side-by-side in the face of an enormous house. The image isn't on the paper, nothing but streaks of side-by-side green and blue, but that's what he thinks of when he looks at the page.

The pastels feel good in his hand, soft yet firm.

He’s starting to think— _think_ that Rafe isn’t as bad as he first thought he would be. Well, he _is_ as arrogant and stubborn and volatile as Nate thought he would be, but not so much an asshole. He’s _less_ of one around them, in any case, which is admittedly nice because there’s a pride in being _tolerated_ by somebody who seems to despise all else.

His fingers are moving before he really thinks about it—a thick maroon line struck across the page, far too parallel with the top of his sketchbook to be a realistic shoulder line. He’s getting ready to block out a second figure in seafoam green when he finds himself scrutinizing that first line.

This _is_ Rafe, so maybe this could be a realistic shoulder line for him, because even when there are no fancy suits or ball gowns to impress, his shoulders remain tense and alert as ever.

Nate’s beginning to wonder if Rafe Adler even knows what it means to _relax_ when he sees Sam turn to Rafe and say something inaudible. Then, to Nate’s alarm, Sam pulls back the arm he has thrown over the sofa so he can sling it over Rafe’s _shoulders_ instead, and Nate almost cries out in warning, _doesn’t Sam know he could lose a limb for that_ , but Rafe simply stills, shoots a small, sharp, sideways glance at the older man, then—relaxes?

Nate’s hand stutters over his sketchbook, equally lost as the rest of him feels. Maybe he’s jealous—that somewhere along the way, his brother has gained _something_ in Rafe, that now it isn’t just him and Sam because Rafe’s there too, or—

Then he feels guilty for being jealous, because Sam seems _happy._ Nate’s seen him grinning more brightly lately, laughing more, _doing_ more to get Rafe’s attention, even if most times Rafe just rolls his eyes and walks away.

So Nate will settle and accept that this is happening because Sam— Sam’s done everything for him, sacrificed so much, and if all Nate has to do in return is shut up and deal with the odd but tooth-rotting _closeness_ between them, then yeah, he can do that. He’s even _proud_ of Sam, at the same time wanting to jibe him mercilessly like any good brother would.

“Sleep?” he hears Sam murmur. He’s not sure if the two have forgotten that he’s still _in the same room as them_ , which honestly says something about their alertness when they’re around each other, because what if Nate was a burglar or something? A burglar sketching on the counter, but the point stands.

Rafe says something in return that’s drowned out by comical weeping from the television, and then Sam is going beyond the arm-around-the-shoulder by curling his arm towards Rafe’s head and carding his fingers through his already slicked-back hair. Nate does catch what Rafe grumbles next: “Don’t touch me.” He sounds close to sleep, though, and it ruins the quality of his threat.

“Not touching,” Sam says with a grin, withdrawing his hand from Rafe’s hair but keeping it quite contently around Rafe’s shoulders. He sounds close to sleep too.

If Nate’s lucky, they’ll both fall asleep on the sofa and he can have the bed to himself — there was a mix-up with the hotel rooms that morning. He’s sure they would all benefit from it, what with Sam’s lifelong tendency to cling to anything in his sleep and Rafe’s apparent need to relax more. Nate, then, closes his sketchbook after all, returns the pastels into the box, and retreats to the bed. If either Sam or Rafe decide they want to claim it from him, he decides, he’ll rock-paper-scissors them for it. 

And maybe he’ll finally thank Rafe for the pastels in the morning.

 

iii.

It’s supposed to be morning, but the sky is dull and the ocean breeze is sharp and biting, merciless as it whips through their hair and clothes. Even with the clattering of the boat supplies around them and the roaring of the motor, the boat ride is silent.

Or maybe it’s just him. The sun _is_ out, so maybe it’s warm after all—he can’t tell. His cheeks don’t feel like anything at all, maybe numbed from the cold, cold droplets of water that the sea throws at him or maybe just from his own crying. Maybe. He can’t tell.

Rafe, sitting at the farthest end of the boat, hasn’t said a word. Maybe that’s why it feels so quiet. Nate only glances at him for a few seconds, enough time to think that anyone else might have called the expression on Rafe’s face _boredom_.

It isn’t. His shoulders are tight, fist clenched where it rests atop his thigh, and his eyes are vacant because of too many thoughts, not a lack of them. Or maybe Rafe is also wondering if it will be warmer if he were to submerge himself under the ocean. He can’t tell.

_Talk_ , Nate wants to plead at him, and then he thinks the same to the unnamed man navigating them back to the mainland. _Someone, anyone._ It feels like an oxymoron, three people stuck on a small boat yet with nothing to say to each other.

“Weren’t there three of you?” their driver asks when they’re finally at the docks.

“That’s all for today,” Rafe says in lieu of an answer, cold and precise like the wind, and he doesn’t wait to start walking towards the car, and Nate finds himself struggling to catch up. The drive to the hotel is is silent too, and so is the elevator up to their rooms, until Nate thoughtlessly follows Rafe into his and Rafe sits at the edge of his bed and doesn’t look at him and says, “Get the hell out.”

_You said to come with you. You said come with you or join_ him _, so why are you telling me to leave now, how could you, Sam should be here, how_ dare _you—_

“Or at least,” Rafe croaks, “shut the goddamn door.”

Nate toes it shut, and he didn’t think he could stand to be in the same room as Rafe but he finds himself coming closer anyway, close enough to discern the tremors in Rafe’s shoulders. They tremble minutely, as if struggling to withhold the rage or frustration or whatever the hell else Rafe Adler even _feels_ because it certainly isn’t the grief or remorse or any trace of _sympathy_ that was equally lacking when he shouted before, _Your brother is dead_.

And then—a shift, a crack, a chip in the foundation of the dam, and Rafe says, voice laden with guilt and guilt and _guilt_ , “We left him.”

_You did. I didn’t want to—oh but I did didn’t I we left him oh God oh Sam._ “We left him,” he echoes in some sick sort of agreement. He feels sick.

“Oh fuck,” Rafe exhales shakily, “fuck, I change my mind, get out, _leave_.”

“You said to go with you, go _with you_ , and that’s why I’m here, fuck _you_ , Rafe—”

“I said _leave, Nathan!”_

_“Don’t call me that!”_

He’s shouting but so is Rafe and he doesn’t care anyway, thinks he’s allowed not to care this one time. 

“It wasn’t my fault!” Rafe shoots to his feet, fists coiled and eyes _blazing._ “I’m not the one who shot him. _I didn’t kill him_.”

And Nate knows in the back of his mind that that’s not the accusation here, but he lashes out anyway, “No, but you let him die.”

It’s not a fair thing to say, but it would be easier to believe. It’s easier to remember how Rafe had gripped his arm and urged him to get up; it’s easier than remembering that he had his choice and he left instead of staying.

He expects Rafe’s fist to slam into the side of his head, but the blow never comes. 

Rafe crumples back onto the bed, looking small, and Nate feels a very faint inkling of guilt for thinking so low of him.

“I’m leaving,” Nate whispers. In the moment, he means the room; in the morning, he’ll mean the hotel, and the country, and Rafe, Rafe and what he's given and taken from his life.

“I understand,” Rafe murmurs. In the morning, he will simply nod before climbing into his car and driving off.

For now, Nate reaches out to grasp Rafe’s shoulder, intending to apologize somehow—but Rafe sees the movement in time and recoils sharply before Nate’s fingertips brush against him.

“Don’t—” Rafe begins, voice uncharacteristically soft, “don’t touch me.”

Maybe it makes sense that Rafe wouldn’t want to be touched after what Nate said. Maybe it makes more sense that Rafe would have only let Sam do such a thing. But maybe, if Nate tried anyway, Rafe would let him too.

Maybe. Nate can’t tell, but he does know he’s tired, so tired, and when he leaves the room, the opportunity leaves with him.

 

iv.

He can tell something’s changed when he next sees Rafe Adler—on a cliffside, surrounded by an army, Nadine, and his not-dead brother, framed by green. Magazine pictures and secondhand descriptions don’t count—this is the first time Nate’s properly seen him since a sunny morning in Panama, and Rafe looks most similar to the first time Nate saw him: standing tall, stance stable, hands moving as he makes light conversation with a gun in his hand. 

He moves with a new kind of confidence now, the swagger of a man who believes himself to be on the brink of something _great,_  and this is different from the confidence he wore on that night at the gala. _That_ was a man who was given everything in his life; here is a man ready to do _anything_ to give himself a name.

His shoulders are set as ever, and in the face of his partner, his hired army, and _Sam_ , Nate suddenly understands why Rafe stances himself here the same way he stances himself for appearances.

Rafe, unwavering, calls him _Nate._

Moments later, he also says, “I’m the one that got Samuel out,” and his shoulders tense there, a twitch of movement that mirrors the sudden hitch in Nate’s chest.

“What—?” The word slips out mindlessly as he looks to Sam, baffled.

“ _Oh_ ,” Rafe says, smirking. “Wow. What did he _tell_ you?” There’s such a vicious amusement to his voice that Nate wonders if it’s retribution for his outburst in a hotel, years ago, or maybe Rafe is just that cruel as he goads Sam, _really? You lied? To your baby brother?_ With each word, his shoulders seem to become lighter, lighter, like those words mean something else between them—

—them, Sam and Rafe, who once fell asleep on a sofa together, who got drunk off of too-expensive wine together, who bumped wrists when they didn’t think anyone was looking— The past resurfaces like a photograph that refuses to be pushed underwater, clashing with the present of _now_ , Rafe raising a gun to him, Sam stepping in front, _fire_ , a bullet, a jab—

Then falling, then sudden, brutal pain, then cold, and Nate thinks before he loses unconsciousness, _It’s no warmer underwater._

 

v.

It’s just above pleasantly warm in the burning ship, and if they weren’t staring mortality in the face, Nate might have compared it to Miami. _If only_ , he thinks. There isn’t much else that’s similar, except maybe that it’s him, Sam, and Rafe again, and he says _maybe_ because Sam isn’t awake and he’s not sure if Rafe is really _here_. 

_Has this_ you _always been there?_

When Rafe pulls the sword from Avery’s remains, his shoulders lift for a second, then lower—an exhale. Then they set again, reflecting the determination, or perhaps the grim _acceptance_ , that this is how things must end.

Rafe stands, at first, like he presents himself to everyone else—languid but firm in his feet and sure in his spine—and maybe Nate and Sam _are_ everyone else now, no longer exempt from the personification of mercury that is Rafe Adler, and if Nate thinks about it, he’d say there’s a pleasing symmetry in it. If he thinks harder, he’d consider it a form of tragedy.

_Have you really always been like this?_

Rafe is swift, moving with practiced ease, but he pours everything he has into his strikes and when Nate sidesteps a sweeping arc, Rafe stumbles from the momentum. Nate lunges in with his fist instead of the edge of his own sword and lands two punches meant to stun, until Rafe ducks out from underneath his arm and sends him spinning quickly to reorient himself.

It’s inevitable that Nate’s blade cuts him, a long and quickly thickening line of maroon across Rafe’s stomach. There’s too much going on for Nate to fully grasp it—he’s fighting for his life, for _Sam’s_ life, and maybe even Rafe’s, and all he’s thinking is, _I have to live. I want to live._

A misstep sends him sprawling across the crackling ship floor, and he barely regains focus in time to catch the sword that Sam, _alive alive alive_ , shoves over to him. He sees what it does to Rafe—deepens the rage and _hate_ in his eyes and heightens the mania in his downward strikes until Nate’s sword breaks in half completely from the brunt of them.

Above him, Rafe towers easily, and Nate still doesn't know much about where he comes from, but he can't help thinking that Rafe looks more haunted than ever by the invisible weight around his shoulders that might have been there since the day he was born, dragging him down, down, down.

Nate cuts the rope and heaves himself away. He doesn’t see the mound of gold plummet; he’s glad he doesn’t. Seeing the pile of it a split second later is enough to dredge a familiar nausea in the pit of his stomach.

_No_. _No, I don’t believe you have._

But who’s there to hear him now?

It’s odd, to feel filled-past-the-brim, too full, and simultaneously feel hollow.

When Sam tries to tell him to leave, he is thinking of only two things: He will not leave anyone else; he will not leave Sam again. The burst of the cannon blurs his hearing, but he’s glad for it because it makes reality a little less sharper.

When they make it out of the wreckage, it’s easy not to think about it. Once on the plane, Elena is there, Sam is there, and eventually so is Sully, and Nate can revel in the thought of _we’re alive_ as he crushes them all—his _family_ —into a hug.

In that moment, their presence is so complete that it’s as if he’s never been lonely in his life.

 

+i.

The sketchbook tumbles out when Sam drops the box none-too-gently on the attic floor.

“Hey, hey, be careful with that,” Nate chides his brother, at the same time Elena calls from below, “Everything okay up there?”

“Nate here just ran into a beam,” Sam calls back before Nate can say anything.

“Make sure you ice it,” is Elena’s only response, and Nate can see clearly how she might be rolling her eyes or smiling fondly.

“She’ll hold that over me for a while, you know,” he tells Sam pointedly, who only chuckles and shakes his head.

“What’s in here, anyway? All those _drawings_ you told me about?”

“Some of them,” Nate says somewhat defensively, and he bends down to pick up the sketchbook that had fallen out of the box. Its cover is brown moleskin and it’s thin, with several cracks running along the spine from frequent use—it’s the sketchbook he last opened on the night before they went ahead with their willing imprisonment. 

“Well,” Sam says, clapping dust off his hands, “mind if I see?”

Nate shrugs and passes the sketchbook along to him, feigning ease. There’s no one there that Sam would recognize—the human figures are all faceless as they hold their drawn positions for eternity and longer.

He knows when Sam is on the last page because his brother asks, “Is this one unfinished?”

Nate tilts his head to catch a view of a thick red line running through the middle of a page. It’s less vibrant than he remembers, with more colors—sometime through the years, streaks of green have rubbed off from the adjacent page and overlapped with the red, while a brief, faint line of blue lies smeared just above it.

For the first time in years, he wonders what would have happened if he had continued to reach out in that hotel room.

“Sort of,” he says, not a lie.

Sam accepts the answer with a shrug. Sometimes, Nate wonders if Sam still wonders certain things too. Most times, he sees the downwards-slanting line that has dictated the shape of Sam’s shoulders since they swam out of a burning ship, and he knows better than to ask.

“Let’s go get breakfast,” he suggests, clapping Sam on the back.

“You read my mind.”

He tucks the sketchbook against the far left of an otherwise empty shelf waiting to be filled with other memories.

Then he goes downstairs with his brother.


End file.
